CLASS 2 student of Chevannes Basic School LeJeanna Peart correctly spelled ‘HUNDRED’ and was declared champion of this year’s Little Bee competition sponsored by Kiwanis Club of New Kingston.

Peart is also champion girl, while Shalmon Robinson of Lalyce Gray Basic School was named champion boy and overall second place winner. He got ‘HOLIDAY’ wrong, but rebounded for second place with ‘PLEASE’.

Rounding out the top five places are Akira Walters of Elim Basic School, Kienna Sinclair of St Francis Infant Primary, and Kahil Henry of Sunrise Early Childhood Development Centre. The five represent half of the group which advanced to the final round of the competition and endured a 90-word round.

The Kiwanis club explained that students prepared for the competition using booklets with selected words and picture prompts distributed to the schools at the event launch earlier this year. It said, further, that the words are selected in collaboration with the Early Childhood Unit of the Ministry of Education so that the appropriate level of difficulty is achieved.

The Little Bee finals were held on Wednesday, May 27, in the Guardian Life board room in New Kingston under the theme ‘Reaching out, Transforming Lives’. It was first staged in 2002 and seeks to improve the spelling and literacy skills of four and five-year-old children in basic schools. It is one of several projects undertaken by the Kiwanis Club of New Kingston.